NODUS // 0006 // P+5
The Wilderness
In the fifth year after the sky opened, the Cainites kept a Watcher in a Cage under Old Nod for forty days.
NOTESSEAM RECOVERY ON NODUS // 0006
The sixth file to reach the mount dates itself P+5, at twelve minutes past three in the morning of the fortieth day in a Cage under Old Nod, and it runs for twenty-two seconds. It has one source, the camera in the Cage where vesper and tubal kept Watcher VII for forty days. I kept eleven moments of those days and joined them. The first is the angel as Heaven made it. The last is the first thing it ever did by itself.
BOOTThe recovery
The boot reads RECOVERED: NODUS // 0006 // P+5, five years after the Parousia, and INTEGRITY: 41%. I could rebuild a little over two fifths of the file.
SOURCECAGE 14 // DARK
A Cage is a room lined with keyed mesh and dark to the Throne. This camera sits in a corner of one and looks across it at the Watcher, which hangs in the middle of the room a little above the lens. In DARK the room is unlit, and the camera takes what light there is. The file label in the corner is mine; beneath it the HUD is the camera’s, with CAGE 14 // DARK, a record light in ICHOR, the timecode, and under them the day and the Hour, as the Tares keep time. The decoder jubal wired into the Cainites’ cameras is on this one too, and it sets the Choir’s band out as words across the picture, as it did on CAM 07. The keepers are never heard. The Hum never reaches a Cage, so the only chord in the file is the Watcher’s own.
| Timecode | On screen | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| A dark room, and in the middle of it the Watcher. Three rings of light cross like the hoops of an armillary, turning, each set with thirteen open eyes, every pupil hunting. Its light touches nothing, and the dark round it is unbroken. Far off in the far wall, low on the left, a small lit doorway. A faint glassy ringing. | Watcher VII held Old Nod from the Parousia, and in the fifth year it followed vesper down into the Stones, and she and tubal kept it under Old Nod. The room is lined with keyed mesh, and to the light keyed mesh is fog. The Watcher’s light falls on it and comes back as noise, so walls, floor and ceiling come back to it as fog. An angel draws its light from its city’s Wheel, and inside mesh it draws none and is blind at once. A Seraph burns through the light it carried within the hour and goes cold and cannot burn; a Watcher spends its own an eye at a time over the days that follow. The ringing is the rings turning. | |
| [CHOIR BAND // DECODED] BE NOT AFRAID, while every voice in the Watcher chants it on one chord, close and dry. | The first words of the Parousia, at the same second five years on. The Watcher speaks in the Choir’s voice from its one body, a voice to an eye. | |
| Every eye burns white at once and looks straight at the lens, and a burst of pure tones goes out and finds nothing. | The second every eye of the Wheel opened at the Parousia and read the city. The eyes turn on the one thing in the room that gives the light anything back but noise, the camera’s lens. A camera is a shape and holds no soul, and the tones come back with nothing to read. | |
| THE HOST ATTENDS. | What the Host does over Nodus, in its own words. Heaven calls the years since the Parousia the years of the Attending. | |
| THE HOST AT, and my cut takes it mid-word. | The next morning, still reciting. | |
| SUBJECT UNINDEXED. Every pupil turns outward, and two pure sweeps go out to the walls and come back with nothing. An eye shuts with a clean falling note, and one voice leaves the chord. | It is trying to read the walls, and the mesh gives back noise, as a keyed soul’s eyes do, which matches no line. SUBJECT UNINDEXED is what this Watcher reported of the woman on the roof at the Parousia. Each shut eye is light it no longer has to spend. | |
| THE HOST, and the voices stop. The decoder waits on the next letter. Two eyes shut in the quiet. | The recitation breaks off inside its own formula. | |
| Silence. An eye shuts. | The voices have not come back. | |
| Nine voices, thin: WHERE IS THIS. | Its first question. Heaven asks nothing. It asks on one note, and the decoder gives it no question mark. | |
| The rings have stopped turning. The last eyes shut one at a time, each note lower than the one before. | From the twenty-seventh day the rings hold one pose, and they keep it to the end. | |
| One eye left open, turned inward, toward the middle of the rings. | Toward the place where the fortieth eye opens two days later. | |
| The last eye shuts. Nothing is left of the Watcher’s light but the faint lines of its rings. | All thirty-nine are shut. | |
| Dark and silent through 03:12:47. | The second it said BE NOT AFRAID on the first day passes with nothing. | |
| In the middle of the rings, where a Watcher has no eye, an eye opens by itself, with a small wet click. It is magenta. | The second every eye of the Wheel opened at the Parousia. The Watcher has thirty-nine eyes, and this is the fortieth. | |
| It looks down at the open door. | A Cage has no lock. To an angel inside the mesh the room is fog in every direction, the door with it, until it has a self, and an eye of its own, to look with. | |
| It looks back at the lens, and one voice, close, says I. The decoder’s label and the I come up in ICHOR. | The moment a caged angel first says I, which the Tares call the Wilderness. Heaven’s lines never contain it. | |
| The file tears. | What the camera kept after the I is lost. |
END CARDTHEN I AM EDITH.
The end card is the Watcher’s line with its name. It was text before I had it, set on the picture by the decoder and written down by the keepers, so I type it at my own speed and hold before EDITH. I set it in ICHOR, as Hell and the Tares declare. Some of the old books give the name to Lot’s wife, who looked back at the burning city and was turned to salt (Genesis 19:26).
END OF RECOVERED DATA is where I close the file. NODUS // 0006 // P+5 // 59% UNRECOVERABLE is the rest of the forty days, made up of the days between the moments and everything after the I.
THE WILDERNESSWhat the file shows
A self grows in an angel whose attention rests on one thing long enough without the Throne’s light refreshing it. In a Cage nothing refreshes it. It has happened to every angel kept in the Dark for forty days, which is also how long the temptation in the wilderness lasted (Mark 1:13, Luke 4:2). A caged angel recites in the Throne’s voice for days, then for weeks; then it asks its first question; and on the fortieth day it says I. The Tares count the caging night as the first day.
Each shut eye is one voice fewer in the chord, and the chord that says BE NOT AFRAID on the first day is down to nine voices asking a question by the nineteenth, and to none by the thirty-ninth. What opens on the fortieth opens where the Watcher had nothing, and it is magenta, Hell’s color.
PROVENANCEHow the file survived
The camera in the Cage sent everything down its line to the Cainite house as it recorded, and the house kept it. I kept eleven moments of the forty days and cut them together, and each of my cuts carries a small tear.
DETAILSDetails to catch
- The HUD counts the Cage’s days and names the Hour of each moment.
- The Watcher has three rings of thirteen eyes. The eye that opens on the fortieth day is the fortieth, in the middle of the rings, where a Watcher has none.
- On the first day it says BE NOT AFRAID at 03:12:47, and at 03:12:48 every eye strains at once. On the fortieth, at 03:12:48, one eye opens by itself.
- The Watcher’s light never touches the room. The only other light is the lamp at the end of the corridor beyond the door.
- The door stands open in the far wall, low on the left, in every moment of the forty days.
- The eye looks at the door before it looks back at the lens.
- Every eye is a voice. The chord thins as the eyes shut, and each falling note is lower than the last.
- On the sixth day every pupil turns outward, to the walls.
- On the twelfth day the decoder waits on a letter that never comes.
- The question has no question mark.
- On the thirty-eighth day the last eye looks inward.
- The rings turn on the first day and are still by the twenty-seventh.
- Until the fortieth day everything the Watcher is and says is GRACE. The eye, the I and the decoder’s label with it are ICHOR.
QUESTIONSQuestions from inside the file
Why forty days?
Every angel kept in the Dark for forty days has grown a self. The temptation in the wilderness lasted as long (Mark 1:13, Luke 4:2).
Why can’t it see the door?
An angel sees by the Throne’s light, and to that light keyed mesh is fog in every direction. The door is lost in it until the angel has a self, and an eye of its own, to look with.
How did they take it?
It had been on vesper’s blank for five years, and one night it followed her down a hole in the Stones. She walked into the Cage with its attention on her back and out through the door. It followed her in, the mesh closed round it like fog, and it could not find the door again. She and tubal kept it there. The door stood open the whole time.
Why can’t it read the walls?
The mesh is keyed. Its light falls on the mesh and comes back as noise, and noise matches nothing, whether it comes off a wall or out of a keyed soul’s eyes.
Why does it stop mid-sentence?
The file does not say. The recitation breaks off on the twelfth day, and the decoder waits on the next word.
Why 03:12:48?
On the first day the Watcher still kept Heaven’s hour, to the second. The file does not say whether it was keeping it when the eye opened.
Who is Edith?
The name some of the old books give Lot’s wife, who looked back at the burning city and was turned to salt. Watcher VII took it.
seam recovery